Definitions redefined at TEDxLSE

Last Friday saw only the second ever independently organised TED event at the London School of Economics. The day promised talks, performances and workshops selected to encourage us to ‘Redefine our Definition’, and it certainly delivered.

The first of the day’s offerings was part talk part performance coming courtesy of geek songstress Helen Arney. An alumnus of Imperial College, Arney shared her theory that comedy and science are natural bedfellows, something she went on to brilliantly demonstrate by playing the audience her obituary in song form, accompanying herself on the ukelele. This was my single most enjoyable talk of the day and a welcome reminder that your degree can take you anywhere in this world.

Rob Symington’s talk was a breath of fresh air for an Imperial student like me. He began by retelling the story of how he “accidentally ended up with a well paid city job”. It was incredible to hear him describe his fear of revealing to his colleagues that he was unsatisfied where he was. Fast forward a few years and Rob now heads up Escape the City, a servicewhich takes disgruntled city workers and connects them to inspiring and fulfilling opportunities around the world. Rob’s was a story of fear-of-the-unknown and overcoming the voice in your head that tells you to stay put. It left me inspired and more determined than ever to bin the career’s spam that plagues my Imperial inbox.

By far the talk that left the biggest impact on me was Kyra Maya Phillips’s. As we filed into the theatre to begin the third session, we were all handed a pirate’s eye-patch. It’s safe to say few knew what to expect. Kyra drew inspiration from two archetypes to argue that if we refuse to confront and understand the darker side of our nature, we cannot hope toever improve ourselves and the things around us. It was the swash-buckling, plundering pirates who first experimented with democratic rule on their ships. They were the victims of cruel totalitarian systems of rule and were determined to find an alternative. Instead of ignoring those periods of darkness, they embraced them as a catalyst for change. The second archetype is the computer hacker, the ‘people who can’t fight the itch to fix and improve’. To achieve their goals, they must first dismantle and understand the intricacies of a system. Phillips argues that we must take the same approach to the parts of ourselves that limit us, the parts that scare and hinder us; our ‘dark sides’.

Hearing how this approach had helped Kyra overcome depression in her own life was perhaps the most affirming part of a moving an heartfelt talk that left the audience rapt.

Beyond the talks, the event was a very slick affair. The team behind it, who are wholly student led, deserve heaps of praise for putting together a range of speakers that were diverse in content, background and approach but united in the underlying TED spirit of ideas worth sharing.

I for one can’t wait for next year’s TEDxLSE. Before that, however, Imperial has an independent TED event of its own…